Forming a priest
The aging and their caregivers need the Church more than ever, says retired lawyer who found a new vocation while caring for his dying parents.
This is the second in a series of three profiles of seminarians who will be ordained June 20 to serve as priests in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. May 15: Mike Quinn. June 12: Joseph Previtali.
At 62, retired corporate lawyer Bill Thornton is in the first wave of post-World War II baby boomers. That fact proved critical in his decision to seek a new path after retirement: the priesthood.
Thornton found himself wrapping up his 28-year legal career at Bank of America at the same time that his parents were aging and facing the end of life. An only child, unmarried, he helped guide them through their final years. In so doing he learned much about the value of spiritual nourishment to the sick and elderly - and to the family members who care for them, especially children handling work, parenting and elder care all at once.
Thornton realized that situations like his would be repeated time and again as the younger boomers coming up behind him retired and their parents needed care. The Church would have a growing role to play in offering spiritual support. Thornton wanted to contribute.
He might have served in a pastoral role as a member of the laity, but the circumstances of his life pointed him to the priesthood. His mother, E. Patricia Thornton, was a devout Catholic who shaped her son's spirituality at an early age. Thornton, who attended both public and Catholic schools in his many moves around the country as a naval officer's son, must have shown an interest in a priestly vocation early on because one of his pastors when he was a youth encouraged him to pursue that path. At the time he was not ready.
Thornton would not be ready until he and his parents went through major transitions together, 40 years later, in his middle age and their old age. His dad, William H. Thornton Jr., died in 1996 after a 10-year illness. Later, when his mother became ill with Alzheimer's and moved to a care home in Southern California, her son was at her side as the disease slowly progressed. "It was very difficult," Thornton said. "She needed spiritual help, as did I at the time. It was difficult.
The experience of caring for both his parents awakened the vocation that Thornton's pastor had glimpsed in the young man decades earlier.
"I'd been thinking about it but I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do," said Thornton, who was ordained a deacon in 2008. "And around that time I had been making arrangements for my parents as they got older. I spent more time around hospitals than I spent in the rest of my life. I was impressed by the workers that I met, particularly nurses. I was also impressed by Eucharistic ministers from the parishes. And I became interested in the possibility of ministry to senior citizens and other shut-ins.
Mrs. Thornton's trying illness and death in 2003 took place in a Catholic environment, giving her son his most intense view of the impact that Catholic principles and Catholic pastoral care can have on the sick and dying. Thornton was particularly impressed by the chaplain at his mother's residence, Jesuit Father Cornelius Buckley. The priest would prove instrumental in Thornton's decision to train for the priesthood and would advise him on his application to St. Patrick's Seminary and University.
Thornton entered seminary in 2004, the year after his mother's death. He never doubted his choice.
"It may be that older seminarians have fewer doubts than younger ones," he said. "That seemed to be the case for me. I really didn't hesitate. Once I started the seminary I really wanted to go all the way through and didn't have any regrets. I'm anxious to be ordained and to begin priestly service as soon as possible."
Thornton said he is open to all assignments as a priest. He is spending the final phase of his training as a pastoral assistant to Father Larry Goode, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in East Palo Alto.
"I'm certainly enthusiastic about all aspects of priestly ministry," Thornton said. "Currently I'm working with a group of 9-year-olds, getting them ready for First Communion. We should be welcome to whatever comes in."
But Thornton hopes to have opportunities to pursue his interest in elder care when he becomes an archdiocesan priest. He has been emotionally moved by the work and has reflected deeply on it.
"It appears to me that the Church will need to focus more on the care of senior citizens in the future, for more reasons than one," he said. "One reason is there are just going to be a lot more senior citizens as the boomers get older - and they are already of retirement age. There will naturally be more need for ministry to people in this age group."
A second reason Thornton cited is that the children of the elderly will need spiritual care themselves, as he witnessed in his own life. He noted that although he rarely has had a problem with hospital staff on providing pastoral care, often family members are hesitant to call a priest for fear of frightening the loved one. That, he said, is a mistake, for the patient is fully aware of the situation and often benefits from early and frequent pastoral care.
A third reason is that the Church, Thornton said, owes it to the elderly to support them in their traditional role of transmitting the faith to younger family members.
"It's often the grandparents or the great-grandparents who will assure that a newly born child gets baptized," Thornton said. "They'll be involved in encouraging their adult children to look after the religious upbringing of the young children in the family."
Thornton noted that in the communist Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, grandmothers kept the Church alive under difficult circumstances. He also cited the example of St. Monica.
"St. Augustine was apparently a hopeless wastrel for most of his youth but it was his mother who kept on him," he said. "That same dynamic is at work today. The older members of the family are a resource for the Church. The possibility of encouraging them in that is another aspect of this which interests me quite a bit."
Thornton says his experiences with caring for the elderly and sick have taught him that a priest should be brought into the conversation "sooner rather than later." He says this can be a difficult step for families to take but one that always benefits the person receiving care. Listen to the audio clip at Catholic San Francisco Online/Multimedia.
"Even an athiest..." Two spiritual mentors stand out in Bill Thornton's career: Jesuit Father Cornelius Buckley, the chaplain at his late mother's care home, and Father Larry Goode, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in East Palo Alto.
"They're quite a bit alike," Thornton said. "They're very devoted and, if I might use the word, saintly as well. It's really great knowing them. Anybody would like knowing them. Even an atheist would like both of them."
By Rick DelVecchio
From May 22, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
